Putin' My Oar In

We had the misfortune, on Monday evening, to accidentally find ourselves on CBS, late evening, when Stephen Colbert was interviewing Oliver Stone. Reason for the interview, as usual, was to advertise something, in this case Mr Stone's new series: 4-part interview with Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation.

There are video clips of the interview around the net today, along with commentary, I shall not link to any though, because I was disgusted, not as Colbert and his (probably auditioned and coached) audience were, i.e. with Oliver Stone's cheek for interviewing in courteous and friendly mode Russia's President Putin, Villain du Jour in the USA just now. My own disgust was with the animosity shown by Colbert to his guest; and by the rudeness of his audience to the show's guest. Having read some relevant threads of comment and opinion pieces today, I suspect I'm probably one of a tiny minority in my views on this...so be it.

I'm not anti-Russian these days, the USSR is no more, Russians in general are, and really always have been, much the same as we are; the USA and Russia could be friends, useful friends too. But NO..oooo, making Russia our friend can never be allowed!

Tsk!

I've scribbled about Oliver Stone in the past, two archived posts are HERE and HERE. I've grown to admire him, especially in regard to his political opinions.

I've never written anything about Stephen Colbert, until now. If you can't say anything good, to say nothing is supposed to be the best guideline, which I'm tempted to cross further but shall desist.

Untold history -"Always the historian sees as in a mirror darkly, the reds and the golds rendered drab by the shadows of time"

 From a strip by Bill Watterson: Calvin & Hobbes

At a loose end one afternoon this festive season, I turned to Netflix, began watching Oliver Stone's documentary series The Untold History of the United States, recently added to the Netflix menu. I didn't realise until some time afterwards, while searching my tags for something else, that I had mentioned Oliver Stone's series in the past - in Feb. 2013 - when the series was originally aired, on Showtime.

Here's what I wrote in 2013:

Revisionist history has to be treated with the utmost caution - heck, in my opinion all historical narrative has to be treated with caution.

What brought this on? A reading of reviews and articles about Oliver Stone's Showtime TV series The Untold History of the United States. I've neither seen the series nor read the book, so am really not in a position to comment on Mr Stone's views in particular. From threads of comment here and there I picked up the idea that Stone has views about World War 2 that conflict with mine. I could be barking up the wrong tree, however. Commenters may be the real culprits. There's quite a bit of the: "Greatest Generation?" That's rubbish!" kind of attitude slung around; I was happy to note, also some intelligent counter argument.

Anyway, thinking again on this issue which has always irked me: historians, even the most fastidious of 'em, can only view events of the past from the perspective of their own time. It is impossible to walk in the shoes of those who made decisions, carried out orders, lived within the situations in the time in question. And this is the kicker: historians always know the end of a story. That makes an enormous difference. Those characters being written about, and oft critcised, did not know how their story would end. Added to that factor, even contemporary with the event there would always have been multiple perspectives of what was occurring and why. There's no single answer to any question about an event in history.

In the case of revisionist history writers the situation for the reader gets worse. Added to the above, revisionists almost always have axes to grind, their own agenda be it political, religious, financial/attention seeking or other. Such authors will tweak and massage, in insidious ways, what has become accepted history - which is already unlikely to be 100% accurate for reasons offered above.

After typing these few lines and mentioning the topic to my husband, he handed me the day's local newspaper and pointed to a half-page article headed Abe Lincoln's Conflicting Views by Walter Williams. In the first paragraph there is mention of the recent Lincoln movie, a book by Thomas Di Lorenzo, said to expose the Lincoln myth: Lincoln Unmasked, and another book, Lincoln Uncensored by Joseph Fallon. The last mentioned author is said to have examined 10 volumes of Lincoln's writings and speeches. "We don't have to rely on anyone's interpretation", says Walter Williams. No, we have to rely on anyone's cherry-picking of items to match their agenda - don't we, Mr Williams?

Having now seen three or four episodes of Mr Stone's series, as far as the cold war period, I've yet to decide whether to continue. There wasn't anything presented that I hadn't seen or read before, and more than once - nothing really "untold". Emphasis by Mr Stone and his co-writer American University historian Peter J. Kuznick, is more focused on Henry Wallace (how different would things have been had Wallace been FDR's Vice-president, and president on FDR"s demise?) Also, there's some strong emphasis on Russian involvement in World War II without which, outcomes and the present as we know it, could have been very different.

So far, Messrs Stone and Kuznick aren't revising as much as simply re-focusing historical detail, of which most viewers will already be aware. The facts have long been available, just not emphasised in exactly this way, at least not often.

On two or three occasions in the early episodes, I noticed some jabs at The British Empire and felt a wee bit of antagonism creeping in. Back in the time of British Empire-building, that was "the thing to do" - build empires - every European country was having a go at it! It's altogether wrong to look at events and aims critically through 21st century eyes without taking into consideration the atmosphere of those times. Britain itself had been occupied by, and had been part of, the Roman Empire. In 1066, William of Normandy conquered England. During the reign of Henry II, England was part of the Angevin empire, which included Ireland and most of western France....Some good bite-size historical information on the British Empire is here: at The British Empire Through Time.

The empire-building bug infected certain sectors of the human race almost from Day One - it does still! I suspect that Americans like to point the finger at the wrongs of British Empire builders and colonialists (and admittedly there were many wrongs) to allow themselves to feel a tad better: "We are bad but THEY were worse!"

If I can get myself in the right mood to continue watching the rest of this series, more on the topic could well be posted in due course.

Today's post title, by the way, came from this quote:

No one can really know the life of his own day, let alone that of times long past. Always the historian sees as in a mirror darkly, the reds and the golds rendered drab by the shadows of time.
~Earl R. Beck, On Teaching History in Colleges and Universities

Postscript:
My archived blog-post on Oliver Stone himself (and his almost astro-twin) is HERE.

Astrological Twins ~ Tommy Lee Jones & Oliver Stone

In keeping with the times, back to a Virgo theme: astrological twins born in the USA on 15 September 1946, with Sun/Mercury in that sign: Movie actor Tommy Lee Jones and movie writer/director Oliver Stone. Cities and times of birth are the only differences in the two natal charts. Tommy Lee Jones was born in Texas, Oliver Stone in New York; Jones at 10:00 PM, Stone at 9:58 AM (Astrodatabank). Natal charts are shown together, below.



The two men are friends, and have collaborated professionally on three occasions to date, in the movies JFK, Heaven & Earth, and Natural Born Killers. It's not easy to detect, from on-line sources, whether their personalities, outside of professional life, are in any way similar. They are sharing a rather well-worn "crumpled" look in their later years.


Jones has the reputation of being difficult on set, critical and demanding of his fellow cast members (Virgo in action) and quite at ease playing "difficult" character pieces. Stone's movies are almost always controversial in one way or another, framed to provoke his audience and get them thinking. There's much political content, often critical (Virgo), in his films, describing the direct human consequences of national policy, in both halls of government, and in board rooms of corporate financiers.

Though now sporting that decidedly crumpled look, in his younger years Jones had a darkly handsome and mysterious attraction, probably thanks to a mix of Welsh and Native American genes. Until his more recent films, not directed by Stone, we hadn't seen his lighter side and feel he has for humour. This reflects his lighter Gemini, ascendant, as compared to Stone's heavier Scorpio rising.






Virgo Sun/Mercury reflects their shared critical nature. Both have Moon in Taurus, at different degrees, but in harmonious earthy trine to their Sun/Mercury. In Stone's case Moon lies in challenging square aspect to Pluto (planet of power) which connects to his anti-government stance; whereas Tommy Lee Jones' natal Moon, a few degrees further along in Taurus doesn't produce the same intense square. Both men's Sun/Mercury square Uranus - with rebellious Uranus spiking their otherwise practical, common sense Virgo/Taurus Sun/Moon mix.

(Right, Jones' characters from JFK and Natural Born Killers.)

Mars (war and energetic sports) and Jupiter (excess) are conjoined in both charts - in Jones' case this can be seen as connecting to his love of polo, a sport at which he excels. In Stone's case Jupiter/Mars in Libra, just a couple of degrees from his Scorpio ascendant (ruled by Mars, planet of war), connects to his determination to enlist in the army in 1967
(when he could easily have avoided the Vietnam war).
He specifically requested combat duty too, was later decorated for courage under fire (Bronze Star & Purple Heart), and returned to civilian life with a deep disgust for war, especially for the war in Vietnam.




I first saw Tommy Lee Jones long ago in the the lead role of TV mini-series, The Executioner's Song(not directed by Stone). He turned in a brilliant performance and has been a favourite ever since. His performance in another TV mini-series Lonesome Dove served to stengthen my opinion of him as an actor. I didn't enjoy him as much in Stone's JFK, declined to see him in Natural Born Killers because of its violence, and though I admired his acting in Heaven and Earth found the movie depressing, much more so than The Executioner's Song....which does seem rather strange.

After having seen both natal charts, I suspect my preference for Tommy Lee Jones' work, over Oliver Stone's is likely a result of Jones' Airy Gemini ascendant - which must strongly appeal to my Airy Aquarius Sun.
Though Stone's Watery Scorpio ascendant matches my natal Watery Cancer ascendant - but this doesn't work as well, or so it seems! I do agree with most of Stone's political views though, I'm just not keen on the way he presents them on screen.

So then, both astrological twins display a flair for presenting challenging and controversial topics and characters in uncompromising fashion. Both are critical by nature - one critical of his fellow actors, the other of the US political scene. Neither exactly matches the stereotypical Hollywood star or director.

Internet Movie Database
Tommy Lee Jones http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000169/
Oliver Stone http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000231/